You see mafia....everywhere! But what exactly is it? Well, I'm glad you asked....

Mafia is a strategy game. It's a mind game. It's a role-playing game. The point of the game is to win. But how do you play?

You are sent a role by the moderator (mod). The moderator leads the game. If you have questions about anything, you should ask him or her. This role has all of your information. You can either be a town player, a mafia player, or a 3rd party player:

Town: You are part of the majority. You are essentially the "good" guys. The way to win the game for you is to kill all mafia/3rd party. You can think of it like real life. If a mafia comes into your neighborhood, you would "win" only if they were gone, right?

Mafia- You are the minority group here. Your goal is to be the last people. If you are equal or outnumber the town then you have succeeded. You have a "kill" that you can do each night, which can be coordinated through talking with your fellow mafia partners. We shall explain more in-depth later.

3rd Party- 3rd Party is not used every game, but it can be an interesting dynamic if used. The goal of a 3rd party player is to survive until the end. They do not any alliance with either town or mafia. They can have killing powers like the mafia, or can be a normal player.

How a game works:

The mod will randomly pass out roles to all players involved. Your role will have your alignment. If you are mafia, you will have a list of fellow mafia members. Town members most likely will not know each other.

Day: When the day starts, most likely there won't be much evidence to go on, so Day 1 is a random day that's only real use is to look for early scumtells. A scumtell is a slip up by scum (mafia) that reveals themself in one way or another.

Common Scumtells:

Bandwagoning: If there are 5 people voting one person, and you vote for that person too, there is nothing wrong with that. But if that vote stops, and a different vote occurs, and you vote that person too, than it starts to look like bandwagoning. Once 4 or 5 big votes happen, and you are on each one, it starts to get scummy. To counter-act this, whenever voting always try to have a good reason behind it, instead of doing it just because other people are.

Submarining: Posting often is a good thing. When you don't post for awhile, people become suspicious. In theory, if you were mafia and you submarined, you couldn't say anything stupid and condemn yourself because you aren't talking. That fool-proof plan can backfire though, as people start to realize wehn a person hasn't posted at all in the mafia game, but is posting a ton in the regular forums....

Anyway, back to the day....

So once you get past the randomness and have some decent leads, your job is to "lynch" the person each day who seems the scummiest to you. A lynch is reached by a majority vote. If there are 19 people in a game, 10 votes are needed to lynch someone. Once someone is lynched, the mod will write up a end scene showing the person getting killed, and then night will start.

Night:

At night all action players will send in their actions. To be an action player is to be a player with an ability at night. (These abilites will be detailed in your role pm). However, you can also be a regular player with no abilities at all. Some common roles are:

Cop: Has the action of investigating one person each night. The mod will inform the cop of his selection's info during the night.

Doc: Has the ability to "save" one person from a potential kill. Any kills directed at that player become void.

roleblocker: Has the ability to block one person's night action from happening.

Masons: A group of 2 players who know each other to be town and can talk to each other at night.

Mafia Godfather: Leads the mafia, and sends in the kill for the mafia.

Back to the night. The mafia have a kill ability, meaning they can talk at night and decide on one person to kill.

When day starts again, the cycle repeats. Now that you have more information, you can make wiser decisions on who to lynch!

Perhaps a note on the Godfather role, about how some mods prefer they come up as town to cops, so town may need to rethink their evidence later in the game.Also perhaps a quick mention regarding multiple unaffiliated mafia factions, or roles with win conditions that don't rely on survival necessarily. (Usurpers, lynchers, jesters, etc.)

Mafia is what you make of it and a game can only be as good as those who are participating, regardless of how good of a job the 'mod' (storyteller, guy/girl who runs the game/sets it up) does with it. Here's some advice to the mafia newcomer, take it as you will. This post will not cover game mechanics or any of that stuff, its available many places.

First and foremost, players should know their role. Every time you join a game, Google the role description exactly as it appears. If you're like me and like research, browse ended games that had similar roles to your own on this site (hint: if the game's over you can just look at the first page of the thread to ascertain what role were in the game unless the mod is sloppy and doesn't update the OP */cough ga7 /end cough*...) Trust me, this will bring up many, many helpful things for a vet player or a 'noob'.

Secondly, join games where you are welcome. I mean this with the utmost respect, random new player who's reading this, but PLEASE don't jump into a game with all the 'old school' players when you've never played mafia before/don't plan to be active. Play in a 'noob game' (preferably more then one) before you step up to the big leagues. Don't take that the wrong way, I'm not saying they/us are better then you, its just that a different level of play is expected of you and the game falls out ENTIRELY different with the vets then it would in a normal game and you WILL be/get lost if you're inexperienced. When you wanna play ball you start in the minor leagues and work up, right?

Third, if you can't post at least a few times a day, don't join the game (incidentally, my reason for not playing any longer). I can't stress this enough, a bare minimum of 2 or 3 posts a day will do if their times vary (morning, afternoon evening works best IMO) but you should really aim higher. NOTHING kills a game like a bunch of inactive pricks...

Fourth, this community can some times seem elitist; it's not, they just come off like that... Ask questions (in the appropriate places), make stupid mistakes, and post things you shouldn't; it's ok, when you're new that stuff happens to everyone and though you may get yelled at for it (speaking of mistakes...) no hard feelings will be carried over and you WILL get your question answered. Unless you do something BIG like post your scum buddies names after you die or something, if you ruin someone's game intentionally after all the time and effort they put into it you deserve to no longer be allowed to play here (ie, blacklisted) and be flogged repeatedly with something pointy and sharp.

Fifth, don't spam games with random nonsense, whether its your game or someone else's (unless your name is Fircoal, then its expected). There's nothing more annoying (besides maybe inactives) during a game then some fools spending pages discussing something totally un game-related. Chat is fine and please make friends and what not but just don't let it take over the thread.

Six, there is no editing of posts in mafia. That dumb-ass thing you just posted stays there for the duration of thread, get used to it now and think through your post thoroughly before hitting submit.

Mafia can be a fun game but it is not for everyone, if you're into forum games/games along these lines, please give it a try. You can meet some interesting/pretty decent individuals playing it on this site ( ) which can be both pro and con, depending on who/how, but overall this is a great group of people who are willing to go out of their way to help you, the new guy, play and learn the ropes. PM any member who's name you see frequently posting in threads in this section with a question, I guarantee you'll get an answer (how truthful/helpful depends on this specific member you've chosen to ask, lol).

Just some random thoughts I wish someone would have told me when I first start playing this game, I'll add more as they come to me (ie, not 5:30 am...).

kalishnikov wrote:(hint: if the game's over you can just look at the first page of the thread to ascertain what role were in the game unless the mod is sloppy and doesn't update the OP */cough ga7 /end cough*...) Trust me, this will bring up many, many helpful things for a vet player or a 'noob'.

Hahah, it was a good initiative by Jnd there's no denying that After reading Kalish's post a bit more thoroughly (I'm used to skim everything he writes really... ) most things are sound but I disagree on one: I really don't think in the current state of affairs that much activity would be required. I'd be more than happy if everyone was posting content at least once a day heh, usually it's enough to have a smooth game. (that means come back Kalish btw, all my favorite scumzors are gone